Ballot CSC-8 v3: Update to Revocation response mechanisms. key protection for EV certificates, and clean-up of 11.2.1 & Appendix B

Ballot overview

• Ballot CSC-8 v3 updates the Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted Code Signing Certificates from version 2.2 to version 2.3.
• The ballot page says the voting period ended and the ballot passed.
• The motion was proposed by Ian McMillan of Microsoft and endorsed by Dimitris Zacharopoulos of HARICA and Bruce Morton of EnTrust.

What the ballot changes

• Makes OCSP optional and requires CRLs instead, including changes in Appendix B for Code Signing and Timestamping certificates.
• Adds Common Criteria EAL 4+ to the supported key protection crypto modules for EV certificates in light of support for RSA 3072 keys.
• Cleans up Appendix B AIA value requirements so the issuing CA URL is used instead of the root certificate URL.
• Removes a clause in section 11.2.1 that conflicted with RFC3161 regarding timestamp responses and the TSA certificate chain.

Approval and voting

• Voting by Certificate Issuers: 7 total votes including abstentions, with 6 Yes, 0 No, and 1 Abstain.
• Voting by Certificate Consumers: 1 total vote including abstentions, with 1 Yes, 0 No, and 0 Abstain.
• The page states the bylaw requirements were met for both Certificate Issuers and Certificate Consumers.
• The page also states quorum was met.

Relevant dates

• The ballot page gives the discussion period as starting on 2021-03-18 at 17:30 Eastern Time and ending not before 2021-03-25 at 17:30 Eastern Time.
• The vote for approval period starts on 2021-03-25 at 17:30 Eastern Time and ends on 2021-04-01 at 17:30 Eastern Time.
• The revised document lists Version 2.3 effective on 2 May 2021.
• The relevant dates section lists 2021-06-01 for Appendix A (1), Appendix A (2), section 14.1, and section 16.2, and 2022-04-30 for Appendix A (3).

Compliance impact

• Appendix A (1): by 2021-06-01, CAs SHALL support minimum RSA-3072 for Code Signing Certificates, Root Certificates, and Subordinate CA Certificates, and SHALL NOT support SHA-1 digest algorithm for Code Signing Certificates.
• Appendix A (2): by 2021-06-01, CAs SHALL support minimum RSA-3072 for Timestamp Certificates, Root Certificates, and Subordinate CA Certificates, and SHALL NOT support SHA-1 digest algorithm for Timestamp Certificates.
• Appendix A (3): by 2022-04-30, CAs SHALL NOT support SHA-1 digest algorithm for Timestamp tokens.
• Section 14.1: after 2021-06-01, the CA shall meet EV Guidelines Section 14.1 for Non-EV and EV Code Signing Certificates.
• Section 16.2: for EV Code Signing Certificates, Signing Services shall protect private keys in a FIPS 140-2 level 2 or equivalent crypto module; after 2021-06-01, the same protection requirements SHALL apply to Non EV Code Signing Certificates.